Nicholas G. Ward, M.D. Endowed Scholarship
EST. 2016
Please address your letter to:
Dr. Dickson
Born into an eastern Montana farming family, Joan “Mutt” Dickson aspired to be a plumber but when she qualified for a full scholarship upon graduating from Scobey (MT) High School, she began her academic career at Montana State University. After literally taking classes from A (architecture) to Z (zoology) and participating in everything from sorority life to ROTC parachuting, she decided the school of life was more appealing than formal college. After a short trial of carpentry, she became a truck driver. She was motivated to take an EMT course not because of the accidents she caused, but because of the desire to assist the injured she came upon while driving.
Thus began her interest in healthcare. While working on the streets for seven years as a paramedic in Las Vegas, NV she came a registered nurse. After being detailed on temporary duty with the Department of Energy to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, she fell in love with the island life. She returned to work there for three years as a volunteer and soon became fascinated with the third world pathology. It was at this juncture she decided to give medicine a try. She completed her undergraduate degree a mere 15 years after starting it. After enrolling in the University of Washington School of Medicine, she had the good fortune to have Dr. Nick Ward as her second year behavior medicine professor and also as her attending during her third year psychiatric clerkship. Initially solely interested in being a family practice doctor like her role model, Dr. Clyde Norman of Scobey, her education under the tutelage of Dr. Ward showed her the rewards of psychiatry. So, Dr. Mutt began a combined residency in family medicine and psychiatry at West Virginia University.
After completing those five years of “fun,” this circuitous path came full circle with her return to eastern Montana where she is in private solo practice. She continues to enjoy seeing both family medicine and psychiatric patients and still uses the same psychiatry textbook co-authored by Dr. Ward from her second-year course to teach her own students.
No story about Mutt is complete without disclosing the origin of her unusual name. She grew up while the cartoon “Mutt & Jeff” was popular. Since she was the short tag-a-long to her tall brother (also a former Nick Ward student, UWSOM graduate and family physician), she has been called Mutt ever since she can remember and takes no umbrage at being called Mutt.
Born and raised in New Jersey, the fifth of five boys, Nicholas G. Ward decided to follow in the footsteps of two of his older brothers and get a degree in engineering. He was accepted and attended one year at Cornell University in Engineering where he quickly realized that he did not enjoy the engineering courses and that the family pattern did not fit. He proceeded to take some vocational tests and changed his major to psychology with the intention of becoming a physician.
Nick graduated with a BA in Psychology from Cornell University in 1969, continued at Cornell Medical School graduating in 1973, and finished his residency in Psychiatry in 1975 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Nick promptly got a job at the University of Washington and began his career in 1975. He arrived in the Northwest and found a home that fit him.
Nick enjoyed research, teaching and practicing medicine, but found that teaching was the most rewarding aspect of his academic career. He felt that, “teaching, like psychotherapy, is more a process than a goal. It employs improvisation, because the teacher must respond to the needs of the class or audience.” He did have a bit of performer in him and could always read an audience, but also really loved the standards of science, medicine and research. He did some of the original work on back pain and the use of antidepressants resulting in the Volvo award from the International Society for the Study of the Lumber Spine in Sweden. His limitless energy and enthusiasm for learning was matched by his intellectual curiosity and ability to think outside the box. It made him an endlessly thoughtful and innovative practitioner of medicine. His main research and clinical interests were in psychopharmacology and causes and treatments for mood disorders. He co-wrote two books: “Essentials of Psychopathology and its Treatment (1995) and Psychotropic Drugs” Fast Facts (1995) displaying his wide interests in both psychotherapy and in drug treatment.
Nick received the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award in 1983, the Outstanding Teacher Award from the UW School of Medicine (chosen by the graduating medical students) in 1997 and 1999, and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Medex Northwest Physician’s Assistant Program in 1995, 1998, 1999. At the time of receiving the UW Distinguished Teaching Award, Nick noted, “there’s an Eastern proverb that the student will find the teacher when he is ready to learn. I believe that is true, but I also believe that a teacher can accelerate the process of getting someone ready to learn.”
In his personal life, Nick married a Washington native and had two children. His greatest joy was in being a parent and introducing his children to camping, backpacking, skiing and the outdoors. He was a wonderful photographer, frequently found with a camera in his hand and had several photography shows and also wrote poetry.
Nick’s career was cut short at the age of 53 when he developed early onset dementia and his light dimmed. He died in 2008.
